A liquid crystal display (“LCD”) is used in a variety of applications including, for example, televisions, hand-held devices, digital still cameras, video cameras, and computer monitors. An LCD offers several advantages over a traditional cathode ray tube (“CRT”) display such as decreased weight, unit size and power consumption, as well as increased brightness. However, an LCD is not self-illuminating and, therefore, in some applications, requires a backlighting assembly or “backlight.” A backlight typically couples light from a substantially linear source (e.g., a cold cathode fluorescent tube (“CCFT”)) or light emitting diode (“LED”) to a substantially planar output. The planar output is then coupled to the LCD.
The performance of an LCD is often judged by its brightness. The brightness of an LCD may be enhanced by using more or brighter light sources. In large area displays it is often necessary to use a direct-lit type LCD backlight to maintain brightness, because the space available for light sources grows linearly with the perimeter, while the illuminated area grows as the square of the perimeter. Therefore, LCD televisions typically use a direct-lit backlight instead of a light-guide edge-lit type LCD backlight. Additional light sources and/or a brighter light source may consume more energy, which is counter to the ability to decrease the power allocation to the display device. For portable devices this may correlate to decreased battery life. Also, adding a light source to the display device may increase the product cost and sometimes can lead to reduced reliability of the display device.
The brightness of an LCD also may be enhanced by efficiently utilizing the light that is available within the LCD (e.g., to direct more of the available light within the display device along a preferred viewing axis). For example, Vikuiti™ Brightness Enhancement Film (“BEF”), available from 3M Corporation, has prismatic surface structures, which redirect some of the light outside the viewing range to be substantially along the viewing axis, and recycle via multiple reflections some of the light between the BEF and the backlight. This results in optical gain substantially along the viewing axis, and also results in improved spatial uniformity of the illumination of the LCD. Thus, BEF is advantageous because it enhances brightness and improves spatial uniformity. For a battery powered portable device, this may translate to longer running times or smaller battery size, and a display that provides a better viewing experience.